Monday, November 11, 2013

Lori Gottlieb did not know that she was among America’s
very, very rich. After all, she’s a psychotherapist.

When she voted for Obama and cheered the arrival of
Obamacare she did not know that she was going to be paying for it, to the tune
of thousands of dollars a year. And she did not know that this extra money was
going to give her less coverage than she had before.

She told her story in the New York Times:

THE
Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call told me that there was a
silver lining in the cancellation of my individual P.P.O. policy and the $5,400
annual increase that I would have to pay for the Affordable Care Act-compliant
option: now if I have Stage 4 cancer or
need a sex-change operation, I’d be covered regardless of pre-existing
conditions. Never mind that the new provider network would eliminate coverage
for my and my son’s long-term doctors and hospitals.

The
Anthem rep cheerily explained that despite the company’s — I paraphrase —
draconian rates and limited network, my benefits, which also include maternity
coverage (handy for a 46-year-old), would “be actually much richer.”

It was new to me: under Obamacare insurers are forced to
cover sex change operations. As if aromatherapy and maternity coverage for a 46
year old were not enough.

So, Lori Gottlieb was mugged by reality. Welcome to Obama’s
America. As the old saying goes: you get what you vote for.

Anyway, Gottlieb decided to express her outrage at the
current state of her health care.

Her friends were unsympathetic. They told her that:

… it
was beyond uncool to be whining about myself when the less fortunate would
finally have insurance.

Not only was Obamacare going to cost her more for less, but now she discovered that her friends did not even respect her viewpoint. Where's free speech when you need it?

Liberals and other assorted leftists are happy to pay higher
premiums because they see themselves as martyrs for the cause:

“The
nation has been better off,” wrote one friend. “Over 33 million people who did
not have insurance are now going to get it.” That’s all fine and good for “the
nation,” but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to
add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)?
Another friend wrote, “Yes, I’m paying an extra 200 a month, but I’m okay with
doing that so that others who need it can have health care.”

A therapist like Gottlieb surely noticed that this is
quasi-delusional. In the first place, Obamacare is an insurance program. It does
not provide health care. In the second place most of those who are going to
gain coverage are receiving Medicaid. (In Kentucky, over 80% of the enrollees
on the Obamacare exchange signed up for Medicaid.)

And everyone knows that Medicaid is substandard insurance,
mostly because very few physicians will accept it.

Let’s not mention all of the great hospitals that are refusing
to accept people who bought their insurance on the Obamacare exchange.

Of course, the president did not tell the American people
how many of them would be losing their coverage or paying more for less
coverage in the interest of putting more people on Medicaid. In fact, he lied about
it.

Good liberals like Gottlieb’s friends do not care. They are
in it for the duration.

Gottlieb has seen the light. It’s not about the 1% being
taxed more. It’s about everyone else getting screwed:

Along
with the smug insureds, President Obama doesn’t care much about the relatively
small percentage of us with canceled coverage and no viable replacement. He
keeps apologizing while maintaining that it’s for the good of the country, a
vast improvement “over all.”

And the
“over all” might agree. But the self-employed middle class is being sacrificed
at the altar of politically correct rhetoric, with nobody helping to ensure our
health, fiscal or otherwise, because it’s trendy to cheer for the underdog.
Embracing the noble cause is all very well — as long as yours isn’t the
“fortunate” family that loses its access to comprehensive, affordable health
care while the rest of the nation gets it.

Sacrificed on the altar of politically correct rhetoric—who would
have imagined such a thing?

One wonders what will happen when the “smug insureds”
discover that their plans are going to be changed too, that they too will be
paying more and getting less… if, that is, they still have jobs.

Keep in mind that the self-insured are just the opening
volley. In time the rest of the nation will find out the bitter truth about
their insurance.

And all for the glorious chance that Bradley can be
surgically transformed into Chelsea Manning. Warms your heart, doesn’t it?

You just don't know whether to laugh or cry. Read the comments in the original article from the deluded NYT readers. Among a few sane ones, there are countless rants telling her it is all the fault of greedy insurance companies. Of course, to remedy this we need single payer. Forward, comrades! God help us. I need a scotch...

There comes a time when one marvels at the utter stupidity of the typical NYTimes reader. How dense does one have to be to keep reading the NYTimes when it has a long history of being wrong about a large number of issues. The understanding of any issue is so thin that the veneer on most cheap tables is thicker. I am beginning to think that one hears about "nuance" in the sense that the word hides what the user really doesn't know. Try getting these people to explain that nuanced position in an intelligent manner. What else can explain the angst for "stop and frisk" at the same time as the typical NYTimes reader desire to do away with a significant portion of the Bill of Rights and think The Constitution is an anachronism. This seems to be the disease of almost all "blue areas" in this country. There are lies, damn lies and Obama's lie.

So another lefty discovers a harsh reality. No matter how many times they are told that all this free stuff for the poor will be payed for by the rich, in the end the middle class ends up paying for everything. Being middle class AND self employed gives you two check marks on the enemies list.